The Toshiba Encore Mini is a Windows Tablet that Goes Where Only Android Tablets Had Dared to Tread

Intel has been promising for the past 5 months that we would see $99 Windows 8 tablet this year, and while the Encore Mini doesn't quite prove the chipmaker right it does come close.This $119 tablet is a very slightly upgraded version of the Excite Go Android tablet I reviewed a couple weeks back. It features the same unimpressive 7" screen, Intel Bay Trail CPU, and limited battery life, only now with Windows 8.1 instead of Android.

The Encore Mini runs Windows 8.1 on an Intel quad-core 1.33GHz Z3735G chip with 1GB RAM. Like the Excite Go, this tablet has a decent enough 7" display with a screen resolution of 1024 x 600, and it has the same estimated battery life, 1GB RAM, a single edge-mounted speaker, and the same general lack of ports as the Excite Go, but Toshiba did improve the Encore mini's specs in a couple places.

This tablet has 16GB internal storage, and it also has an additional 2MP camera on the back to complement the (IMO) unusable VGA resolution camera on the front. You'll also find Wifi, Bluetooth, and an accelerometer under the hood.

All in all this is a very light Windows 8 tablet which could probably have benefited from a bump in RAM.

It's not the first Windows 8 tablet to break $150, but it is likely going to be the first to crack $99. Toshiba lists the Encore Mino for $119, but I am expecting Best Buy to put it on sale for $99 in the near future.

So tell me, would you get one? I'm notplanning to do so, but then again I am not a fan of Windows 8; I'd much rather get an Android tablet in this price range.

But even if I set my preferences aside, this tablet still doesn't meet my standards for battery life - not unless it can improve on the estimated 4 hours of battery life of its Android counterpart.

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Nate Hoffelder is the founder and editor of The Digital Reader:"I've been into reading ebooks since forever, but I only got my first ereader in July 2007. Everything quickly spiraled out of control from there. Before I started this blog in January 2010 I covered ebooks, ebook readers, and digital publishing for about 2 years as a part of MobileRead Forums. It's a great community, and being a member is a joy. But I thought I could make something out of how I covered the news for MobileRead, so I started this blog."

It’s cute, but Windows already feels a little small on the Dell Venue 8 Pro. For reading, the built-in reader is pretty decent for PDFs, the Nook software is actually quite good, but the Kindle app could use some work. I’m still eager to find out what the Microsoft “Consumer Reader” application will be like.

I really like Windows 8, but it is obviously easier to find more polished touchscreen applications on Android. Android also has a much better game selection, and Chromecast provides a pretty solid benefit. However, Windows 8 is extremely responsive, almost every service supports PCs, and I like the consistency offered (multi-window, search, app settings, etc.).

I wonder just how much of that 16gb memory is usable, and if you can run apps from a micro SD card. Given the usual bloat, Windows 8 won’t fit in 16 GB by default, so they have to be trimming a fair amount from it.